The Chicago Cubs had Tuesday night lined up exactly how they wanted it. A 3-0 lead.
A chance to back up Monday’s 7-3 win over the Atlanta Braves. A series that was sitting in a very good place.
Then the game turned hard and fast.
Atlanta clawed back behind a bullpen collapse and left Chicago with a 6-3 loss, a reminder of how thin the margin is right now for a Cubs team trying to hold position in the NL Wild Card race. The Braves were always going to make this series work, but the way this one slipped away stung.
The standings only sharpen the pressure. Milwaukee clinched its fourth straight NL Central title with a win over Pittsburgh, so that door is closed for Chicago. The wild card picture, though, is very much alive, and the next two weeks are going to matter.
San Diego came in having won eight straight before Colorado snapped that run with a 9-3 Rockies win, and the Cubs couldn’t afford to give ground with the Phillies right there too. Both Chicago and Philadelphia lost Tuesday, so nothing changed at the top: the Cubs still lead the Phillies by a half-game and the Padres by 1.5 games. Arizona sits next in line, two games behind San Diego.
Ten games remain. Chicago’s magic number to lock up at least a playoff spot is 7.
The magic number for the top wild card seed is 10. And if it comes to tiebreakers, the Cubs hold them over the Phillies, Padres and Diamondbacks.
What made this loss especially brutal was how the bullpen unraveled. Jacob Webb’s slide continued after his 24-game scoreless streak ended, and it got worse again on Tuesday. Webb has now given up 11 earned runs over his last eight outings, including two more in this one when Ozzie Albies ripped a go-ahead, two-run homer in the 7th.
Webb didn’t even finish the inning. His numbers over that stretch are ugly: 6.2 innings, 11 earned runs, 10 hits allowed, 4 strikeouts, 4 walks and 4 home runs.
He has three losses in that span and a 14.85 ERA. For a club that needs relief help to hold up down the stretch, that is a problem that keeps getting louder.
Edward Cabrera’s night offered a different kind of frustration. He was making his bullpen debut for the Cubs, just the third relief appearance of his MLB career, after Chicago activated him from the 15-day injured list Friday with a finger blister. Craig Counsell had said the plan was to ease him back in with an "easier situation" on his first appearance.
That’s not what he got.
Cabrera entered after Webb had already blown the save, and he handled the first part of the assignment well enough. He retired three of the first four hitters he faced and had his fastball touching nearly 100 mph. At one point, he was one strike from getting the Cubs to the 9th down just one run, and he had Drake Baldwin in an 0-2 hole.
Then Baldwin got a center-cut fastball and crushed it 107.6 mph off the bat into the right-field basket. Atlanta added two insurance runs, and Cabrera was left looking spent as the chance at a clean comeback outing disappeared.
Edward Cabrera in his first game since August 16th and his first relief appearance since 2023:2.1 IP | 2 H | 2 R | 2 BB | 3 KHe has a 5.74 ERA in his first season in Chicago pic.twitter.com/Vfy1ZeCXXC
The Cubs will try to take the series in Wednesday’s rubber match. Shota Imanaga is scheduled to start for Chicago after his solid six-inning, two-run outing against Pittsburgh last time out. He’s 10-10 with a 3.88 ERA and 156 strikeouts.
Atlanta is set to counter with right-hander JR Ritchie, who is 1-2 with a 4.50 ERA.
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Chicago still has a path to October, though, and it is a more immediate one now. The Cubs remain in the wild-card race with a magic number of six to clinch a playoff berth, which gives the rest of the season a clear urgency even as the rotation questions linger and the division race slips out of reach. [Read more 🡒]